


Precipice

by howardently



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:48:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5775745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howardently/pseuds/howardently
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s her, always too much. That’s what he’d said that night, while she’d stared off into the milky air and crossed her arms tightly over her chest, trying to pull herself in further, condense herself into smaller space. Too much, always too much. He’d fumbled to explain, to file down the hurt with piles of useless, unheard words. They’d heaped around her for a few minutes before misting away to join the fog. It’d be too big of a risk, too much to lose, too much pressure. She meant so much to him, he couldn’t bear to lose her, he didn’t want things to change. But she’d gotten the message, the real one he’d tried to bury. It was her, always too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipice

The staircase is long and winding and narrow. Her skin prickles, red and raised in her mind’s eye, shifting as if encasing a thousand tiny ants all angrily bustling about. An anxious knot trembles in her stomach. She’s not claustrophobic, not having psychosymatic symptoms from the proximity of the walls.

No, it all has to do with the boy two steps below her, his fingers pressed against the damp, mossy bricks very near her hip. If he stumbled, if she stopped… they’d be touching all down her back. His hands would probably move to her body to break the fall- her hips, her stomach maybe.

She wonders if it’s ever going to get better, if she’s ever going to stop knowing every point of contact they’d make if she just moved a little. Maybe she is a little claustrophobic, only it’s a very specific kind.

He doesn’t want her. He’d made that pretty clear that night on the tennis courts. She’d been duped by the otherworldly fog and the pearlescent glow from the floodlights above them, by the trembly chill of the night air. She always gets tight and twitchy when it’s late and cold, she’s that way even right now, her feet jiggling in the air as they move from step to stop.

She’d touch the wall too, for balance and for something to do with her hands, but his fingers are just there and it’s too close. Too much.

That’s her, always too much. That’s what he’d said that night, while she’d stared off into the milky air and crossed her arms tightly over her chest, trying to pull herself in further, condense herself into smaller space. Too much, always too much. He’d fumbled to explain, to file down the hurt with piles of useless, unheard words. They’d heaped around her for a few minutes before misting away to join the fog. It’d be too big of a risk, too much to lose, too much pressure. She meant so much to him, he couldn’t bear to lose her, he didn’t want things to change. But she’d gotten the message, the real one he’d tried to bury. It was her, always too much.

She stumbles a bit on a loose stone, and his hand moves to hover just behind her back. There’s a pebble in her shoe, one that won’t move no matter how much she jiggles between steps. His non-contact, the wall of careful space he keeps, while it’s literally the opposite of the rock in her shoe, it feels much the same. A tiny sting, repeated over and over and over until her whole body aches.

“You alright?” He asks, and it’s not gruff or worried or anything.

“Yeah, just… We should’ve brought some torches or something. I dunno what we were thinking.” She makes it accusing, makes it a grouse. She’s always been top notch at grumbling and passing the blame. Another reason he was right to say no.

“Well, I’m not the one who just had to stop and see the castle, am I?”

“You wanted to see it too, prick. I saw it circled on your map.” She slows down a little, her breath starting to burn hot and heavy in her chest. It doesn’t help the jitters from the chill, just makes her feel feverish, hot and cold all at once.

He sputters a bit behind her, in that way he does when he’s been caught out. She wonders pitifully what her tell is, what face or sound she makes when he sees through her. But then, she’s better at hiding things. She’s good at secrets, she’s been lying to herself her whole life. She’d been raised on secrets. Bread and butter.

She’s got a big secret in her pocket tonight.

“Besides, you’re the one who got lost in Newcastle and put us half a day behind schedule.” She snipes, half turning to glance down at him. It’s too dark to see his face, but his shirt shines dimly and his eyes reflect back at her like a cat.

“You were supposed to be-“

She whips back around, scurrying a little faster. They must be near the top.

“Rae, wait!” He calls, but she’s already turning a corner and breaking out onto a new floor.

She feels giddy suddenly, all the nervous energy bursting through her synapses in a wave of unspecific pleasure. She’s emerged from one of the corners of the square building- _out of a turret_ , she reminds herself, _a real turret!_ They’re on the third or fourth floor, she’s lost count, and she can see it now, how high they’ve climbed. Above her, the roof has collapsed on the other side of the square, leaving a gaping maw of stone, a mouthful of stars.

The floor on the south side has collapsed too, so she can see all the way down to the ground. Down there, Mother Earth has reclaimed her territory, built back up a sea of ferns and grass, fortified it with a blockade of brambles, with spindly trees to stand guard in the night. Rae edges slowly towards the hole in the floor, wanting to see, wanting to witness the swaying, swirling darkness beneath them. She inches all the way towards the edge, holds out her arms to the sides.

She’s finally weightless, caught between the endless aubergine sky above and the endless ebony forest below.  She closes her eyes, head swirling, heart thrumming. She’s alive and dead all at the same time. It’s perfect.

He snatches her forearm, and there’s no other word for it. She can feel the snap of his irritation in the grip of his fingers, the sneer on his lips in the jerk of his arm.

“What are you doing?” He doesn’t let go, and she thinks wildly that she’s not too much just this moment. She’s nothing. “Are you crazy? You could break your fucking neck or something!”

“Ha!” She twirls away, down the crumbling floor, away from his grasp. She’s the mist tonight, and all his words, all her muchness are fleeting and opaque. “Ha! Of course I’m crazy. You know that better than anybody.”

She catches his recoil even in her twirl, the stiff knockback of his head on his neck, like she’d punched him. It’s almost funny, so she says it again. “Ha!”

It was one of the reasons. Her craziness. She hates that word, crazy. It’s so awful, clunky and stinging and not sounding at all like what it means. It should be untethered. Loose. Above. Able to see the nothing for what it is.

“You know I didn’t mean…” He starts, heaping more words at her feet, ineffectual and insubstantial.

She heads back towards the staircase, into the sticky darkness, up up up. “You never do.” She calls over her shoulder, and she barely thinks, _What is wrong with you tonight?_

“Stop, Rae.” He calls up, but he’s too far below her and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to do what he wants from her anymore. She doesn’t want to do what she wants from her anymore. She just wants to go up and up and up until she joins the stars. Just another point of light. Then her muchness will be a good thing, it’ll be her brightness, her steadiness to lead someone home.

God, what she wouldn’t give to be steady.

She stumbles on another loose rock and falls, scraping her palms and her shins and her knees and her chin. It takes long moments before the hurt tapers down enough for her to pull herself up into sitting, before she can wipe at her grimy palms with equally grimy fingers. It looks like she’s oozing blackness, like the clay dust from centuries of ruin is slowly swallowing her up. Earth is reclaiming her too.

He’s loud as he lumbers up, boots heavy on the steps. He always walks so heavy, so firm, like he’s not at all afraid to be.

“Jesus.” He growls as he sees her. She wonders what he sees of her in the dark, her shirt is purple, not white like his. “Are you alright? You fell?”

He sounds angry, but she can’t really blame him. Whatever had come over her before has faded away now and she feels shivery and sick, hungover from her brief moment of elation. She realizes she’s crying.

Finn folds himself onto the step beside her, his hip and thigh pressing against hers. “Let me see.” He takes her hands into his lap, gently rubs a thumb over the cuts. He lifts himself up for a minute and tugs at his flannel until it comes untied from his waist. He brushes at her palms with one of the sleeves. He hisses when he sees her torn leggings, thumbs at the fabric brusquely. He looks up when she winces, into her face, and then his body is pressed up against hers even more, his arm winding around her shoulders and pulling her in.

“Hey.” It’s soft, pleading. “You’ll be okay. It’s alright.”

She tries to stay stiff, she really does. She doesn’t want to want him, doesn’t want to want to let her spine go loose and her limbs go loose and her chest go loose. But he smells like them, like this ill-advised road trip they’re on, like salt and vinegar crisps and aero bars and deep ancient dirt, like the faintest trace of her honeysuckle perfume and the complete emptiness of the world in this particular place, like the sun through the car window and somehow like that easy grin he gets when they’re comfortably silent.

It’s too much, too much for her muchness to resist.

She buries her face in his shoulder and wraps an arm around his waist, palm still clutching the flannel and pulling it tight against his stomach. He grunts at first, and she wants to be ashamed of the way she’s twisted herself into him, nearly in his lap. But she’s not. And after a minute, he sighs long and slow and almost silent, pulling her tighter, wrapping her more in his arms.

“I’m sorry.” She whimpers into his t-shirt. She tries not to think about her lips.

“Nothing to be sorry ‘bout.” He huffs, and she tries not to think about how he doesn’t let her go. “You weren’t watching where you were goin’ and you fell and busted your arse. Nothin’ to apologize for.”

“I’m bleeding all over your shirt.”

He chuckles and it’s over. Pop. He pulls back to examine the damage. “Eh, it’s not much. It’s just a shirt.”

She rises jerkily to her feet, wincing at the various parts of her that are aching, parts she hadn’t known were involved in the fall. She presses her back against the bricks. Wet spots bleed in from the moss and she knows they’re going to have to stop somewhere so she can get cleaned up. She can’t drive for another four hours muddy and smelling like history.

Finn stays seated and watches her stand. She can’t make out his expression anymore, even those few feet too far in the darkness.

For no reason at all, it all washes over her again. That horrible night, the worst night. The smell of aluminum in the air from the chain link fence they couldn’t make out across the court. The way the air crawled like a spider along the back of her shirt, tangled in her hair. He’d been wearing his leather jacket, his cigarette a beacon in the silvery night, flashing red and amber with each pull of his lips.

She’d loved him then, too much. Too much to hold back anymore.

God, he was right. Everything about her was just too big.

He’s closer, watching her, when she re-emerges from the hazy memory. She’s missed him standing, missed him leaning against the wall opposite her, missed the way his knee bumped against hers. She shakes her head, inhales deeply. It hurts.

“We should go. We’re going to have to find someplace to stay the night.” She readies her reluctant body to move.

“Wait.” He puts a hand on her arm. She tries not to think about how much she notices where he touches her, how he seems to have broken through the wall now and keeps sticking his hand through the hole. “Just wait here a minute.”

There are better places to wait a minute. The floor below, where you’re suspended in space. The walk up to the castle, with its fallen trees and forest symphony. The snugness of the car, heater pushing away her shivers.

She doesn’t say anything. They stand together in the humid, tepid air, unable to see each other even as close as they are. It’s still, not even their breath can disturb this place. It no longer cares about the silly lives of people; its walls have seen too much and now see too little.

Maybe someday she will feel the same way.

They’re not waiting for him, though they sometimes are when he asks for her to wait. They’re not waiting for magic or a miracle, or for circumstances to change. They’re just standing together, experiencing the moment.

 _I’m never coming back._ She thinks at him. _Once we get to Glasgow, I’m never coming back._

He puts his hand on her arm again and leads her down the stairs.


End file.
